Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket explodes in massive fireball during prelaunch test

Blue Origin just hit a hurdle on its way to the moon. The company's powerful New Glenn rocket exploded during a routine prelaunch engine test at Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station on Thursday night (May 28), creating a huge fireball that lit up the dark Space Coast skies. Nobody was injured, Blue Origin said in an update on X on Thursday night. But damage to the pad — Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) — could be extensive, judging by the extent of the explosion, which multiple rocket-watchers captured on video . The accident could have big implications for Blue Origin, NASA and the United States' moon plans. Blue Origin, which Amazon's Jeff Bezos founded back in 2000, sees the 320-foot-tall (98 meters) New Glenn as its launch workhorse, a powerhouse rocket that will help humanity establish a foothold away from Earth. Indeed, New Glenn is the rocket ride for Blue Origin's Blue Moon, one of the two private vehicles (along with SpaceX's Starship ) that NASA selected to land astronauts on the moon for its Artemis program . And the agency announced earlier this week that Blue Moon will land two private lunar rovers on the lunar surface — missions that are key to the buildout of NASA's planned moon base near the south pole. The agency wants at least one of those rovers to be on the moon before the first crewed Artemis mission (Artemis 4) touches down, a milestone targeted for late 2028. But Blue Moon is supposed to head to the moon considerably sooner than that. …